The man at the centre of Spar homophobia incident speaks out

Tue, 25 Nov, 2014 - 08:51

Ciara Flaherty

The man who was the subject of a homophobic slur in a Dublin Spar has spoken out after the story was screengrabbed and shared widely online.

Colm (who doesn't want his full name released) posted the story to Facebook after being called a 'faggot' by another customer. That customer and the woman he was with were then refused service by a Spar employee - now affectionately referred to online as 'Spar Guy'.

Speaking to the Outmost, Colm gave more details of the incident, saying he “didn’t mean to report this sensational story of ‘my horrific homophobic attack’. It was just a nice thing that happened that I wanted to share with my friends.”

The whole thing happened in about 8 to 10 seconds, like it was so small. But I was so impressed by the Spar guy and I thanked him and bought my stuff.”

Colm also commented on the criticisms directed at him for use the terms ‘D4 head’ and ‘scaldy hun’ to describe the customers who directed the slur at him.

“A lot of people are saying that my position is delegitimised because I made a misogynist comment,” Colm says. “I chose my words badly. I wrote that status when I was walking out of Spar, and hadn’t given too much thought to it. My facebook feed isn’t even public. Only friends can see what I post and I did not write a piece for the public eye. Someone screen grabbed it and shared it.”

And he also described the negative messages he has been receiving online since the story broke.

“I have suspended getting messages from people I am not Facebook friends with, because I have been getting messages from strangers saying that I was ‘oversensitive’, I ‘brought it on myself’, that I was ‘making the story up’. Some were threatening violence and suggesting that I kill myself.”

Meanwhile, Spar Ireland have tweeted their support for the still-unidentified ‘Spar Guy’.